Sustainable Sustainable Innovation:Innovation:

Challenges for Innovation Studies

Govindan Parayil

Professor

Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture

University of Oslo, Norwaygovindan.parayil@tik.uio.no

Global Climate ChangeGlobal Climate Change

o The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore & IPCCo Nobel citation: “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge

about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”o IPCC has done exemplary work on the science of climate change

Global Global Climate ChangeClimate Change

Al Gore has made great effort to disseminate “greater knowledge” about global warming

But we are yet to see the laying of the “foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such changes”

United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, December 3-14, 2007

One of the key recommendations is about developing and sharing technologies

Growth and PovertyGrowth and Poverty

Great concentrations of wealth and growing prosperity in the world

Still 986 million people were eking out a living on less than a dollar a day in 2004 (The World Bank)

2.6 billion people subsist on two dollars a day in 2004 (The World Bank)

Development deficit still haunts the star performers.

Growth and inequality

Development indicatorsDevelopment indicators (Source: World Development (Source: World Development Indicators 2006)Indicators 2006)

Country Population in 2004 (million)

GDP 2004 (billion $)

Electricity usage per capita 2003 (kwh)

Tel landlines per 1000 people (2004)

Cellular subscribers per 1000 (2004)

Internet users per 1000 (2004)

India 1080 691 435 41 44 32

China 1296 1932 1379 241 258 73

Brazil 184 604 1883 230 357 120

South Africa 45.5 213 4399 103 413 78

Indonesia 218 258 440 46 138 67

South Korea 48 680 7018 103 413 657

Japan 128 4623 7818 460 716 587

Sweden 9 346 15403 767 1034 756

Singapore 4.2 107 7977 440 910 571

Denmark 5.4 241 6602 643 956 696

USA 294 11712 13078 606 617 630

Growth & PovertyGrowth & Poverty

It is not all bad news!260 million people escaped

extreme poverty during 1990-2004, mostly in emerging Asia and hundreds of millions moved up to middle class status

Growth and PovertyGrowth and PovertyChina’s growth story during the past three

decades and India’s growth during the past decade.

What about the rising global consumption of food, oil, minerals, etc.?

All people in the world have an inalienable moral right to demand a decent standard of living taken for granted in Europe, North America, Japan and so on.

Can we grow without leaving unsustainable carbon and ecological footprint?

Can we do it through sustainable innovations?

World Energy 1850-2000

050

100150200250300350400450500

1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

Year

EJ/

yea

r

Gas

Oil

Coal

Nuclear

Hydro +

Biomass

World supply of primary energy

Hydro+ means hydropower plus other renewables besides biomass

Energy supply grew 20-fold between 1850 and 2000. Fossil fuels supplied 80% of the world’s energy in 2000. Source: Holdren (2007)

Global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2000

Stern Review (Oct 2006)

The fossil fuels responsible for the energy emissions were still supplying 80% of civilization’s energy in 2005

Business-as-usual (BAU) Business-as-usual (BAU) forecastsforecasts

2004 2030

Primary energy, exajoules

World 500 750

United States 107 150

China 73 140

Electricity, trillion kWh

World 16.5 30

United States 4.0 6.0

China 1.9 4.8 Source: Holdren (2007)

Sustainable Innovation, a question Sustainable Innovation, a question concerning technology? concerning technology?

Environmentally and socially creative ways of expanding productivity and economic opportunities

Need bold initiatives without leaving massive ecological footprint on the planet

Functionality, efficiency, aesthetics, cost and so on are important to engineering design

Sustainability dimension (indicators)A crucial shift in innovation dynamicsA question concerning technology?

Revisiting the technology Revisiting the technology debatedebate

Focus on technology as the problem for unsustainability is an old one

The Limits to Growth (Meadows, et al.)Appropriate or alternative technology

movementSmall is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher)Our Common Future (Brundtland

Commission)

New Innovation DynamicsNew Innovation DynamicsBridge the gap between science and

research with innovationUpstream research discoveries need to

be sustainably bridged to downstream applications

Move beyond price signals for market clearance

Private sector will not allocate resources under extreme uncertainty

A quadruple helix of key stakeholdersOpen innovation and user-producer

interactions

New Innovation DynamicsNew Innovation Dynamics

Innovation and the learning economyA new system of innovationSTI and DUI mode (Lundvall)Learning economy and sustainability

by combining Amartya Sen’s concepts of agency, capability and human development

Development must be seen as an expansion of substantive freedoms that humans value and enjoy

Development is not just growth

Innovation and sustainabilityInnovation and sustainability

Substantive freedoms are essentially the capabilities humans have to live the kind of lives they have reason to value

Freedom from starvation, poverty, and diseases; the freedom of being literate, able to participate in political processes, in civil society, to shape one’s own living conditions; ability to nurture entrepreneurial skills, etc.

Shift in focus from “the patient” to “the agent”

Innovation and sustainabilityInnovation and sustainability

Human capabilities rather than resource endowments are the key to development

Innovation systems approach must be changed to accept this important facet of development

A new approach to knowledge production and diffusion

Problem of commodification of knowledgeBring in sustainability in innovation

systems research

Energy Innovations Central to Energy Innovations Central to SustainabilitySustainability

Arguably, the most crucial innovation challenge facing humanity is in the energy sector

Clean and affordable sources of energy are essential for reducing poverty and improving standard of living

What is the major focus of energy policy in rich countries?

Carbon-based energy innovations are short-sighted

Bio-fuels unsustainable innovation. Why?

Bio-fuelsBio-fuels

Economics of turning food into fuelEthics of using food as fuelGlobal food crisisWestern countries blaming growing

India and China for the problemWhat is the truth?UN Rome Summit on Global Food CrisisWhat sort of bio-fuels can be considered

sustainable?Non-food biomass, switch grass,

jatropha

Energy InnovationsEnergy Innovations

Increasing energy efficiencyCarbon capture and storageSolar energySynthetic biology (advances in genetic

engineering)WindGeothermalFusionNuclear?

A Global Compact for A Global Compact for Sustainable InnovationSustainable Innovation

A concerted global compact to develop and transfer clean and zero emission technologies to developing countries

Any models?International innovation system and

technology transfer model that led to the “Green Revolution”

Thank you!